Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

By Kenny Williams

By Kenny Williams
About four months ago
a group of programmers in San Francisco developed a program that may be one
of the most important Internet technology developments since the search engine. The
program is called Gnutella. Gnutella is similar to the program called Napster
which lets people share music files stored in a format known as MP3. What makes
Gnutella so powerful is that it is designed to allow people to freely share
any computer file across the Internet.
Gnutella works by creating a huge network of computers on
the Internet. Every computer connected to the network has the ability to make
specified files accessible to all network users. Once you have downloaded the
free program and installed it, your computer can connect with thousands of other
computers that are part of the Gnutella network. From there you can search the
network to see if someone else has a computer filename containing the subject
or application you are interested in. For example, type in “Star Wars� and
after a few seconds, dozens of file names may appear, perhaps with music from
the movie, film clips, still pictures of the movie's stars, or even the movie's
script. Once the search is completed you can click on the file you want and
it will begin to download.
The way Gnutella works is a major shift from the way people usually use the
Internet. Typically we use search engines to scour the Internet to find things.
Gnutella has the potential to let people bypass search engines that only act
as a conduit between Internet users and the content they want. Technology spawned
by Gnutella will soon lead to real-time searches of the Internet that will not
have dead links. In essence, Gnutella is an Information search program
What makes Gnutella so unique is that there is no main server or Web site. As
a result, Gnutella users can't be knocked offline if a computer goes down. This
also means it's probably impervious to a legal challenge because there is no
single company or Web site to sue for copyright law violations. Because of its
grass-roots nature, Gnutella is virtually unstoppable.
If you are interested in downloading Gnutella is available at www.gnutella.wego.com.
The Gnutella software is relatively crude and can be difficult to figure out.
Fortunately, numerous websites offer great tips to make it easier to use.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at Observernews@usa.net